This invention relates to an improved method for producing a full face fabricated vehicle wheel.
Full face fabricated wheels are becoming increasingly popular due to the enhanced styling they provide over conventional fabricated wheels. A full face fabricated wheel is distinguished from other types of fabricated wheels by having the appearance of a one-piece wheel disc construction.
A typical sequence of steps which can be used to produce a full face fabricated wheel includes the steps of: (a) providing a flat sheet of suitable material, such as aluminum or steel; (b) forming the sheet into a generally flat circular disc blank; (c) initially stamping the blank to form a partially-shaped disc; (d) progressively stamping the partially-shaped disc during a plurality of intermediate stamping operations to produce a disc having a predetermined shape; (e) final stamping an outer annular portion of the disc to form a bead seat retaining flange thereon which defines an outboard tire bead seat retaining flange of the finish full face wheel; (f) machining an outer edge of the outboard tire bead seat retaining flange of the disc; (g) trimming an end of the outboard tire bead seat retaining flange to provide a smooth tire side flange radius; and (h) securing the disc to a preformed rim to produce the finish full face fabricated wheel.
As a result of forming the full face wheel in this manner, the intermediate stamping operations produce a disc having a generally constant material thickness as the disc is progressively shaped. A slight thinning of the material occurs only at those portions of the disc where the curvature changes and forms a radius. Thus, the outer end of the outboard tire bead seat retaining flange of the disc must be machined to remove excessive material therefrom, in order to provide an end which is thin enough to allow a wheel balancing weight to be secured thereon.
It is known that a flat or a preformed disc blank can be tapered by a flow spinning process to produce a disc for a conventional or a combination wheel as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,823,591 to Schroder et al., U.S. Pat. No. 3,262,191 to Albertson et al., U.S. Pat. No. 3,195,491 to Bulgrin et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 2,983,033 to Cox.